Dana Stabenow - Fire And Ice

Wy immediately straightened out the Cub, heading it away from the scene on a southwest course. "What's it look like, Cecil?" There was no immediate answer, and she banked right and made a relaxed sweep north to look over the situation from what Wy considered a safe distance and from what Liam, returning slowly and reluctantly to real time and space, did not. He squinted at the sky as if he'd never seen it before. It had never seemed so blue. "Is it really over?"

Wy was busy going into a tight circle and didn't answer.

Directly below, one of the big processors had come alongside Cecil's fifty-twofooter. There was a widemouthed hose stuck into the bulging seine net, busily vacuuming up the herring penned there and sucking it into its own hold. The hose was transferred to Corseiner's hold, where it sucked up everything there, too. Alex was next in line with a catch a third the size of Wolfe's. Mike's catch looked smallest of all, but then he'd been busy for much of the opener fending off the encroaching gillnetter, which Liam privately thought was a little greedy of him-surely in a ball that size there was more than enough herring to go around. He knew better than to voice this thought in present company, however.

The other boats, the ones that had not fouled themselves in their own nets or had their sides stove in by someone else or whose engines had not failed them at the crucial moment-or whose crews had not mutinied-had done well, if not as well as the first three boats on the scene. Everybody had fish in their nets, including one tardy soul who failed to close up his purse in time. Over the radio for all the fleet to hear, he was commanded by the Fish and Wildlife officer in the air above to open his seine and let the fish go. It was one of the larger of the lesser catches, and it took a minute for the skipper to bring himself to do it.

"I say again," the Fish and Wildlife officer's voice said sharply, "FirstVery Bonnie Doon, you have exceeded the time allowed to fish; open up your seine."

The Bonnie Doon opened up her seine, and the teeming mass of herring boiled out into open water.

"Ouch," Wy said. "There goes about forty-five grand, swimming away. Cecil, quit sitting on your thumb and tell me how we did!" There was no answer, and she cursed. "Hang on, Liam."

"Wy," Liam said apprehensively. "What are you doing?"

"Just hang on."

"Wy!"

She waited for an opening and when it came, dived toward the big seiner, pulling up again at what Liam felt was the last possible moment. He was so terrified he couldn't catch his breath, let alone scream. "Cecil, goddammit, what have we got?"

It was with real gratitude that Liam heard the radio crackle into life. "Hold your goddamn horses, flygirl. We're busy."

"Well, get the lead out, I want to know if I get new wings for my Cub!"

The other planes were standing off, no doubt conversing impatiently with their own skippers. Wy flew a lazy eight pattern over the fishing ground and back around Dutch Girl Island for about ten minutes before Cecil came on again, while Liam indulged himself in fantasies of her slow and painful death, preferably at his hands. "Hold on to your drawers, flygirl. Looks like we got about a hundred sixty tons between the three of us, maybe a little less."

"What's the percentage?"

Liam could hear the grin in Wolfe's voice. "The Japs say it's looking good-about fifteen."

Wy's whoop was exuberant and deafening. The stick between Liam's knees came back hard and the Cub went into a steep climb. "You buckled up, Liam?"

"Wy? Wy, what the hell are you doing! Wy! WY! Goddammitohshitohshitohshiiiiiiiiit!"

She took them up to 2,500 feet, and they were cruising at 125 miles per hour with all the air room in the world between them and the next plane over when she put the Cub into a shallow dive, building up speed until they hit 140 miles per hour. She pulled back on the stick and pushed in the throttle and whooped again as they sailed around in a picture-perfect loop.

They regained level flight at precisely 142 miles per hour at 2,010 feet. "There," Wy said, and turned to grin at Liam. "We done good, Campbell. Goddamn, but we done good!"

Liam spoke between clenched teeth and meant every word. "I am going to kill you, Chouinard."

She laughed, the sound full of triumph. "Let's fuel up and head for home, stud! We are rich!"

Back in Newenham, Liam unfolded himself carefully from the little Cub and stood erect to blink in the sunlight. He felt strangely lightheaded, elated, possibly even erring on the side of euphoric. He'd spotted herring and survived. You are feeling your immortality, he thought, and grinned involuntarily.

"What?" Wy said, pausing in the act of tying down the plane.

"I'm just feeling my immortality," he said.

She stared at him. "What?"

He waved a hand. "Never mind. Where's the Fish and Game tie-down?"

Her gaze sharpened. "Why?"

He shrugged. "She's a fellow officer. Figured I should introduce myself."

"Oh. Okay. That way." She pointed. "That's their office, that little blue building between the Era hangar and Ye Olde Gift Shoppe."

The Fish and Wildlife Protection officer was unloading her cameras. Liam tapped her on the shoulder and stuck out a hand. "Hi, I'm Liam Campbell."

She straightened and squinted at him. "Right, the new trooper, my opposite number. Charlene Taylor. I heard you were out there with us."

"You did? How? I didn't know I was going myself until last night."

She grinned. "Never underestimate the power and scope of the Bush telegraph." She raised a quizzical eyebrow. "I thought that was my job."

"It is," he said, fervently enough to make her laugh. "It's all yours. I ain't doing that again never nohow not ever."

"I don't blame you," she said with a twinkle. "It does get a little hairy during herring."

She was about fifty, a stocky brunette with laugh lines radiating from the corners of her eyes and mouth. She didn't look even the least little bit wound up, whereas Liam's legs were still shaking from the effects of the loop and he could feel the strain and stress of the past hours humming through the very marrow of his bones. Adding insult to injury, her uniform shirt wasn't even sweated through, the brown fabric holding its neat creases and sporting the requisite number of badges and patches and nameplates and insignia. Liam formed a silent resolve to have the blue shirt of his branch of their mutual service pressed and on before another day passed, if he had to force someone to get out their iron and ironing board at gunpoint.

"What were you doing up there, anyway?" Taylor said, bending back over the camera.

"Partly a favor to a friend, partly an ongoing murder investigation on Bob DeCreft."

She stood erect again, startled. "Bob DeCreft? I hadn't heard that was murder, I thought he just walked into his own prop."

"Does that happen a lot?"

"I wouldn't say a lot," the fish hawk said thoughtfully. "It happens. Not very often, but it does happen, even with old-timers who know better. Especially during breakup, when everyone's working twenty-six hours out of the twentyfour to get ready for fishing season. What makes you think it was murder?"

"His p-lead was cut."

She stared at him, shocked. "What?"

"His p-lead was cut," Liam repeated. "And cut while the power was on, so that when DeCreft switched it off the power was still connected when he walked the prop through. It killed him."

She thought this over, frowning. "You sure it was cut? You sure it wasn't just frayed?"

Liam shook his head. "It was cut."

"Well, hell," she said, and shook her head. "Who would want to kill poor old Bob DeCreft?"

"Did you know him?"

She bent back over the camera. "As well as anyone did around here, I guess. He hunted and fished, so we had some conversation over moose and caribou and salmon seasons, like that. I never had cause to haul him in, although I expect he did his share of poaching."